[Hackage] #233: case of Boolean values "true" and "false" should not matter

[Thomas Schilling]

On 27 mar 2008, at 18.11, Hackage wrote:

> #233: case of Boolean values "true" and "false" should not matter
> ---------------------------- 
> +-----------------------------------------------
>   Reporter:  guest          |        Owner:
>       Type:  defect         |       Status:  reopened
>   Priority:  normal         |    Milestone:
>  Component:  Cabal library  |      Version:  1.2.3.0
>   Severity:  normal         |   Resolution:
>   Keywords:                 |   Difficulty:  normal
> Ghcversion:  6.8.2          |     Platform:
> ---------------------------- 
> +-----------------------------------------------
> Changes (by duncan):
>
>   * status:  closed => reopened
>   * resolution:  fixed =>
>
> Comment:
>
>  I'm actually not sure this was the right thing. It creates a forwards
>  compatibility problem.
>
>  So currently everyone is using Cabal-1.2 which does not accept  
> "true". Now
>  with this patch, developers will start uploading packages to  
> hackage that
>  contain "true" and all the users of Cabal-1.2 will get very unhelpful
>  parse errors.
>
>  We've made a number of changes to the parser recently to make it  
> handle
>  unknown values better, but we've been pretty careful to not make  
> it accept
>  any new values so as not to cause forwards compat problems. Once the
>  majority of people are using Cabal-1.4 or later then it'll be  
> possible to
>  introduce new valid parses without breaking Cabal-1.4.
>
>  So I'm inclined to revert this patch, or at least change it so  
> that "true"
>  "false" are accepted but with a warning, and now allowed to be  
> uploaded to
>  hackage.
>

I'd vote for a warning.